The conversations that I have with my children every morning while I drive them to school.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Dead Fish

I told the boys about a speech I once heard from a pioneer of the PC industry (Fred Gibbons, the developer of the first desktop publishing software for PCs). A very humble individual Fred said that he succeeded simply because he was sailing in a fast rising tide, i.e., the early days of the PC industry. He said, "when the tide rises, even dead fish go up with it". I am sure there was more to it to his success, yet his point is a good one. When deciding what to do, and this is not just professional, it can be about a sport, a hobby, music, politics, etc, picking a "rising tide" can be a huge advantage.

It is not always obvious which tides are rising and which sinking, particularly early on. It usually pays off to wait a bit to be relatively sure. You might miss the benefits of being super early, but big tides often go up for a while.

Of course the top priority should be to do whatever we enjoy and believe in. I don't subscribe to the philosophy of picking the fastest riding tide regardless of how we fill about it. But often we can sail the boat we like in many oceans, so we might as well pick a rising one...